Board makes deep town cuts
Published on March 17th, 2004
STONEHAM, MA - During two heated and often contentious debates this Tuesday and last Wednesday night, the town's Board of Selectmen slashed $4.18 million from the town's FY05 deficit.
Although the Selectmen planned on reducing the town's entire $4.3 million FY05 deficit in one night, that goal quickly proved overly ambitious, as the Selectmen will have to enter a third night of budget talks next Wednesday night to remove the remaining $117,000 shortfall.
Constantly at odds as to how to reduce department expenditures, board members threw out a slew of suggestions on both nights of debate, with many Selectmen unsure as to what consequences would unfold if the cuts were implemented.
"After cutting these departments, do we have a plan as to what's going to happen?..What do we do?" asked Selectman Bob Sweeney, referring to a cut made last Wednesday night that would eliminate the town's MIS/GIS director. "We're basically micromanaging departments we know nothing about."
So despite meeting with department heads for over three weeks to gain an understanding of each office's budget, the Selectmen often found municipal workers and department heads jumping to the podium and shouting from the audience to advise against certain measures.
Resulting in a chaotic and confusing atmosphere where some department heads had no idea of what reductions occurred to their offices, even some Selectmen threw up their hands in bewilderment last night after revisiting the reductions they made the week before.
"Last week, the meeting was at times a little chaotic. There were some things that we cut that we didn't know we cut until a couple days later, one of them being the deputy fire chief," Sweeney vented.
In response, Selectmen Chairwoman Mary Pecoraro expressed her belief that the cuts were very clearly outlined.
"I knew about that. I beg to differ with you. I have it right here, deputy chief, $75,566," Pecoraro retorted.
"I didn't mention your name, that you didn't understand it Mary. But I do speak to board members during the week and there's a couple of items in this that weren't very clear in the chaotic atmosphere we were in," shot back Sweeney, who said he would never support cutting the deputy fire chief.
Despite Pecoraro's assurances, the Selectmen ran into several differences between the cuts outlined in a worksheet provided by Town Accountant Ron Florino and the minutes from last Wednesday's meeting.
Those contradicting numbers included tallies of cuts from the Town Counsel's office, the Community Development office, the Board of Assessors office, the Board of Health, the Police and Fire Departments, the Recreation Department, the MIS/GIS Department, and the Arena.
Attempting to explain the discrepancies, Florino explained that he included several operating reductions included in Town Administrator David Berry's budget.
"They didn't take into account the Town Administrator operating cuts. I just assumed that the Selectmen were willing to go along with those cuts," explained Florino, who claimed additional discrepancies were rooted in the fact that the Selectmen worked off of several different budgets in instituting their cuts.
According to Selectmen Pecoraro, last Wednesday's debate was further marred by several comments by Selectman Charlie Smith that she dubbed "unprofessional".
"The chaos is also because people were making comments that weren't related to the numbers. We can speak to that too, pretty unprofessional last week," Pecoraro charged.
Smith's remarks included comments that the "great wall of china was built faster than the town's website," before the board cut MIS/GIS Director Brian Clapp (whose position was later restored by $30,000), that Town Planner Michael Gallerani "did a great job planning that Dunkin Donuts that didn't go through," before that position was also cut (and subsequently also partially restored).
However perhaps the worst comment of the night came after Smith told a building department employee that, "you look like a thief by putting your face on TV," after she walked the podium to defend her record keeping of financial records, a defense that was made after a separate comment by Smith implied that the building department kept poor track of its financial receipts.
Claiming that many of the board members have never been in a position where they've had to make such drastic reductions, Selectman Tony Kennedy believes that despite some setbacks, the end result of last night's meeting was that the board has made credible cuts.
"I think we've finally got it to $117,000 and that we're fine tuning this budget every night. The reality is we came out with a list and for the most part we've done it correctly. I'm confident that at this point in time, we have something pretty reliable. So I think we're very close," said Kennedy.
A list of the cuts department by department includes:
Police Department
- Total reductions of $274,000
- Layoffs of three police officers
- Reduction of $100,000 of overtime funds, which could possibly be funded in October
Fire Department
- Total reductions of $250,000
- Layoffs of three firefighters
- Reduction of $100,000 in overtime funds, which could possibly be funded in October
Department of Public Works
- Total reductions of over $340,000
- Layoff of one DPW worker and transfer of 2.4 DPW employees in water and sewer budgets
- Leave cemetery clerk vacant and eliminate all part-time hours
- Elimination of 200 street lights
- Reduced Maintenance of Cemetery and parks
Building Department
- Total reductions of $76,591
- Layoff assistant building inspector and part-time clerk
- Transfer full-time clerk and financial record responsibility into Town Clerk's office
Public Library
- Cut $70,000 from budget
Traffic Directors
- Total reduction of $138,100
- Eliminate all but three of 24 traffic directors
Town Administrator
- Total reductions of $79,000
- Eliminate animal control officer, seasonal part-time help, and part-time clerk
- Cut all full-time positions by two to three hours
MIS/GIS
- Total cuts of $40,328
- Reduce director's hours to part-time level
- Cut operating budget
Community Development
- Total reductions of $37,170
- Reduce directors hours to 20 hours per week
- cut clerical hours
Board of Selectmen
- Total reductions of $11,072
- Eliminate part-time clerk
- Cut Senior Christmas Party
Town Accountant and Town Treasurer
- Reduce total of $30,000 from budgets
Board of Assessors
- Total cuts of $11,177
- Replace retiring Assessor Director at a lower pay scale
Town Clerk and Elections
- Total reductions of $2901
Board of Health
- Total cuts of $17,051
Council on Aging
- Total reductions of $30,686
- Fund medical driver's hours and office clerk through grant
- Reduce operating budget
- Reduce part-time clerk by three hours
Veteran's Services
- Reduce department head stipend by $5384
Arena
- Total cuts of $74,946
- Eliminate Arena Manager
- Reduce Operating budget by approximately $14,000
Unicorn Golf
- Reduce operating by $6785
Town Counsel
- Total reduction of $8226
Town Hall Maintenance
- Total reductions of $17,872
- Layoff town hall worker and share DPW employee
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